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Fancy a change of career?

Fed up with lending books (librarians), interpreting the law in them (lawyers), or just feeling a burning desire to get more fun out of working with books?

This could be the job for you:

The Job:

The Children’s Bookshop in Edinburgh is expanding and opening a new bookshop for grown-up fiction and non-fiction. The manager will need to develop core stock, as well as undertake daily stock replenishment and new stock ordering. She or he will also be responsible for event organisation, cashing up, maintaining the customer mailing list, customer orders and managing any additional staff. The manager will contribute to overall business development. Work days will be Tuesday-Saturday.


The person:

The candidate will have a proven track record in bookselling as well as experience of managing staff and budgets. Good IT skills and excellent interpersonal skills are a must. She or he must be self-motivated, but also work well in a team with other staff and with The Children’s Bookshop. Reliability is vital.


Those nice people at Fidra books are expanding into the world of grown-up books, and need a manager for this new venture. Wouldn't it be nice to actually work with books you'd like to read, and recommend to others to read? (I would strongly advise against reading law books for pleasure, unless your definition of pleasure also includes pulling out your own fingernails, and watching the growth of mould in damp areas). The bookshop will open on the 5th September 2009, and I'm hoing to take a trip over.


Prior to the opening of the bookshop for grown-ups (apparently, calling it an "adult bookshop" might attract the wrong type of customers ;) ), they're using the space as a gallery for illustrations by some wonderful childrens book artists.during a period which also encompasses the Edinburgh International Book Festival. The Fidra Gallery will be open from the 11th July - 29th August...think I might make it over to that side of town to have a look. And if I'm feeling too lazy, it's got a website too.


They're also on Twitter as @FidraBooks


It's so nice to have such a friendly, fun and communicative independant bookshop in town, instead of just the Big Beasts of Waterstone's and the supermarket 'reading for the lowest common denominator' options! Through their blog and their Twitter posts, I feel like I know the staff already, without ever having met them!

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